Hi Johnderrick, your post prompted me to go back and re read the...

Hi Johnderrick, your post prompted me to go back and re read the two announcements on the merc contract as things stuck in my mind first time round, that being the wording about, enter into long term R&D and optimising recovery rates or performance ( forgive me if my wording isn’t accurate can’t be bothered to write it down verbatim but I think that what they’re saying )
The inference I take from that wording is perhaps the back end set up needs to be specifically designed based upon the battery chemistry make up in order to maximise the recovery rates. ( although they don’t say that )
The front end if relatively basic, mechanical crushing to separate external shell from the internal elements which are crushed into black mass.
As that black mass may have a different percentage of material ie chemistry make up, will the back end process need to be specifically designed to suite each battery make up in order to maximise recovery rates?
Perhaps why there’s no back end being constructed for the demonstration plant as it’s crushing all mix of batteries and if the black mass produced is sold to be roasted, rather than our separation process, then it doesn’t matter that there’s a mix of battery type contents in the black mass, roasting is a more basic recovery process and won’t recover everything anyway.
I not a chemist and could be reading far too much into the announcements and wording but it seems they may be designing the plant specifically to cater for the batteries Mercedes are using and that needs long term R&D especially if merc change batteries.
As battery designs improve and change the R&D would be constantly needed to then update the design of the back end plant.
Will we see back end plant up and and running, Mercedes’ change to a better battery, R&D team then tweak back end plant to optimise recovery rates, then repeat as new batteries come along.
If so it begs the question what happens when we create a massive back end plant to cater for black mass coming from multiple battery types and make up shipped from multiple crushing plants?
Perhaps that black mass gets mixed in large quantities to create a basic average of elements which don’t really vary that much, and the back end for this multi mix black mass is simply slightly less efficient than those plants designed to cater for only one type of battery content such as the merc batteries.
If we are to process failed new batteries from any gigafactory making batteries ( 10 or 20% fail quality control and need recycled ) then that plant may be designed to cater for that specific battery chemical and again be constantly updated as the factory changes it’s battery design and make up.
All just guessing on my part so don’t read too much into it I’m only looking at the wording and thinking why do we’d need long term R&D when we know the tech is already proven, thinking perhaps it’s to maximise recovery rates from each differing battery type, and as explains above that would be an ongoing process as battery’s improve, Loop.